A Shop for Dan #12: We have plants!

ta da … my goodness you have been busy!
I shared this on GardenTenders today. It’s quite an undertaking – and very impressive.

-- ~ Debbie, Ontario Canada

Thanks, Debbie! I’d participate over there but then I’d really be splitting my energies… And I’m not really a gardener, that’s mostly Charlene’s thing. I will eat the strawberries, however.

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/

Great: Keep it moving. And eat well.

-- Retired in Delaware

no problem, Dan … I shared it for you :D Enjoy the berries!

-- ~ Debbie, Ontario Canada

Motion activated sprinklers to deter winged pests…..hmm, sounds diabolically clever….I must investigate this further.
Thanks for sharing.
Well done.

-- No, finishing touches are what you do at the END of the project!

Yeah, I was initially thinking some sort of home built system involving a webcam, a computer to watch for motion, and a motion control system (yes, I am the sort of geek who has stepper motors and controllers lying around) to target the spray, but it turns out that for $50-80 (and I haven’t figured out what all the differences are yet, and for $180 you can get one that has its own water reservoir) you can get a sprinkler that’ll do most of this for you.

Given that I’ve got enough projects going on without building an auto-targeting spray system (as much fun as that would be), $80 sounds like a bargain.

And I have to get plumbing up there anyway for irrigation, so hopefully I can get something that’ll be sensitive enough to respond to cats and mocking birds.

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/

interesting!!

When you get one up and running you’ll have to post a review and then I’ll link to it, over at GardenTenders.

-- ~ Debbie, Ontario Canada

The neighbour’s cat lives at my pond and catches/eats the frogs …. maybe this system would stop her from visiting… but then I wouldn’t see the birds either, so that’s not good

-- ~ Debbie, Ontario Canada

I believe most of ‘em use an IR sensor similar to what’s used in motion sensitive lights, and you can tweak the sensitivity on those. I don’t know how selective they are, but it may be possible to set it to detect a cat but not a bird.

I’ll buy one and report back…

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/

excellent

-- ~ Debbie, Ontario Canada

Just wanted to follow-up that for the first year or so apparently you’re supposed to pick all the flowers off the strawberries, to let the plants get better entrenched. So no sprinklers yet.

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/

Update! We went down to Friedman’s, bought whatever motion activated sprinkler they had on their shelf there, and it’s been on the roof all summer, seems to work awesomely. I’ll try to write down the info from it, but the only problem we had was that if it was set too sensitively it’d go off when the wind blew. But not much has been eating the strawberries (knock on wood), so we’re hopeful!

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/